The invention relates to a coffee bean container, in particular a double bean container, for releasably fixing on a coffee grinder or a coffee machine with an integrated coffee grinder, in particular a bean-to-cup coffee machine, with multiple bean compartments separated from each other, each comprising a bean outlet through which coffee beans can exit the respective bean compartment in the direction of the coffee grinder. Such coffee bean multi-containers have so far usually been used in food service, i.e. in the professional environment, in order to be able to store and process different kinds of beans with a grinder, in particular aimed at producing different types of coffee and jointly supply different kinds of beans to the coffee grinder for adjusting the coffee's characteristics. Furthermore, the invention relates to a method for operating such a coffee bean container.
The above-mentioned coffee bean multi-containers, in particular double-bean containers, more and more become a part of the home environment, together with household coffee machines designed as bean-to-cup coffee machines. This particularly comes with the problem that unexperienced users tend to remove the coffee bean multi-container from the housing of a coffee grinder or a coffee machine after locking without previously closing the bean outlets, with the coffee beans falling out of the multiple open bean outlets as a result, which causes time-consuming cleaning works.
In single-use coffee bean containers, the above-mentioned problem has already been solved in that closing units have been provided for closing the only bean outlet. Such an arrangement is described in DE 203 00 928 U1, for example, in which the closing unit, respectively the movement of the closing element is mechanically coupled with a rotational movement of the coffee bean container per se. Such solutions are particularly difficult to realize with the comparatively larger coffee bean multi-containers, and multiple such closing units are required for the multiple bean outlets.
DE 31 42 348 A1 discloses a coffee grinder with a crushing gear and a storage container arranged above it, from which coffee beans are supplied into the crushing gear.
DE 10 2007 008 900 A1 describes a bean container for a drinks machine, with a container for storing beans, with a delivery opening for supplying the beans into a crushing gear.
DE 20 2011 005 003 U1 discloses a twin-chamber bean container of a coffee machine having two separate bean chambers and a joint bean container outlet arranged in the bottoms of said chambers.